Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Image credits- Presidency of Russia  Source- The Diplomat Authors- Nhina Le and Koh Swee Lean Collin t all began with apparently innocuous activity reported in both the Russian and Vietnamese press citing the Russian Defense Ministry on January 4. According to the reports, Russian Air Force Il-78 Midas tanker planes were granted access last year to Vietnam’s aerodrome facilities in Cam Ranh Bay, located in the southern Vietnamese province of Khanh Hoa. The Il-78s enabled the refueling of Russian Tu-95 “Bear” strategic bombers, which coincided with intensified Russian military flights in the Asia-Pacific, including “Bear” sorties that circled the major U.S. military redoubt in Guam. These flights, claimed to be a show of strength and for intelligence-gathering purposes, were deemed “provocative” in the eyes of Washington. A request was made to Hanoi “to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in

Image source- Flickr / Credits- Presidency of Sri Lanka Source- The Diplomat Author- Nilanthi Samaranayake Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to Sri Lanka highlights New Delhi’s reawakening to the strategic position that Sri Lanka holds in India’s neighborhood. Since 2008, India has watched as China built port facilities, highways, and other major infrastructure in Sri Lanka. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy warships have also paid port visits to Sri Lanka, even taking in Trincomalee, where India has been sensitive to any extraregional presence for decades. Most recently, in September and October 2014, New Delhi became unsettled at the sight of a conventional Chinese submarine and a tender ship openly paying port visits in Colombo on the way to counter piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. Despite the public nature of the docking and advance notice, Indian policymakers appeared to be taken by surprise and feared India had lost strategic ground to China re

Param Super Computer  ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- CDAC) Source- The Diplomat Authors- Asit K. Biswas & Kris Hartley “Everyone under 18 has only one guru, Google guru,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a Nasscom event in early March. He insisted that India’s IT industry, where innovation plays a critical role, is successful because government is “not there anywhere.” By implying that state participation stifles industry growth, this widespread sentiment belittles industrial planning and the promotion of particular sectors or corporate champions. Does Modi’s statement about the absence of government support India’s commitment to R&D and innovative capacity? Innovation is a driver of national competitive advantage, and ultimately the individual is the primary source of innovation. Therefore, connecting human development and government intervention becomes a crucial task in supporting growth strategies. Following India’s latest budget,

INS Kamorta ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Indian Navy) In continuation of our series "Make In India", today we feature Kamorta class Corvette. She is the first of a new class of corvettes designed and built in India with high level indigenous content. Built as an Anti Submarine warfare corvette, Kamorta is highly capable and a real force multiplier.  Kamorta class corvettes are the Indian Navy's next-generation anti submarine warfare platform, built under Project 28. They are being built at Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata. All the four corvettes are planned to be handed over to the Indian Navy by the year 2017. Project 28 is the primary project for driving localisation and developing the warship construction industry in India. The aim with this project is to stipulate unprecedented standards while providing opportunities to Indian vendors to develop expertise with the technology. The project, driven by the Navy's D

Kilo Class Submarine ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- United States navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Lyle J. Goldstein After a brief respite, the South China Sea cauldron is starting to boil once again. This time, the hub-bub concerns not a close call between aircraft, nor dueling flotillas of coast guard vessels surrounding a mysterious oil exploration rig, nor the precarious resupply of a rusted out hulk of a ship grounded purposefully on an obscure reef Rather, the current frenzy among journalists, strategists, and now legislators concerns a variety of new structures that Beijing has undertaken to build up in and around its occupied reefs in the Spratlys. These structures will likely include an airfield. While this recent construction makes for interesting satellite photos, the impact on the actual naval balance of power seems quite minimal: limited to perhaps somewhat improved Chinese surveillance in the southern part of the South China

Image credits- Internet Source Source- South Asian Voices/ The National Interest Author- Arka Biswas Pakistan recently test-fired a surface-to-surface ballistic missile, Shaheen III. Capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, the missile is estimated to have a maximum range of 2750 km. While it has been claimed to provide a boost to Pakistan’s strategic depth and to deterrence stability in South Asia, a careful examination of how Shaheen III impacts the deterrence equation between India and Pakistan captures the latest Pakistani missile to be instead counter-productive. Shaheen III is the latest addition in the Shaheen series. The previously developed and successfully tested missile, Shaheen II, is estimated to have a range of around 2500 km. The range of Shaheen II continues to remain a rough estimate. For instance, right after Pakistan tested Shaheen II in March 2004, Pakistan’s National Engineering and Science Commission (NESCOM) chairman, Samar Mubarakmand, was quote

Image credits- www.kremlin.ru Source- The Diplomat Author- Neil Thompson Russia’s President Vladimir Putin famously described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. A conservative Russian nationalist, Putin has lamented the break-up of the old Soviet Union, not because he regretted the disappearance of communism, but because of the severing of the numerous and deep economic, linguistic, social, and cultural connections that linked most of the fifteen constituent republics of the old USSR. It is these ties he is keen to recreate, albeit in a looser supranational union than the old federal structure which bound the fifteen national-homelands into one communist “state.” This vision, if not exactly shared by a majority of the peoples living in the lands of the former Soviet Union, was received with some sympathy – at least until Ukraine’s easternmost Russian-speaking regions were roused to revolt by Russian intell

Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author-Keith Luse Source- The Diplomat Author- Van Jackson If the global norm against nuclear proliferation is to retain meaning, North Korea must remain isolated from the international community in certain respects.  But that doesn’t mean the United States or South Korea should be allowed to conduct naïve policy and planning toward North Korea.  Recognizing the threat we are dealing with on the Korean Peninsula—a nuclear-armed North Korea—is a distinct proposition from allowing North Korea to rejoin the international community. In recent congressional testimony and in other forums, I variously described North Korea as a “virtual” and “de facto” nuclear state, as part of a larger argument about military planning.  Subsequently the chairman of South Korea’s Saenuri Party—whose members control the National Assembly and the Presidency—suggested it was time for South Korea to “recognize” (“in-jeong”) North Korea as a nuclear state.  This has se

Image credits- Narendra Modi Official Source- The Diplomat Author- Ankit Panda Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tour across the Indian Ocean this month was long overdue. Despite its name, the Indian Ocean has not firmly been under India’s custodianship, despite New Delhi’s status as the most capable sea-faring state in the region. During his trip, Modi visited Sri Lanka, Seychelles, and Mauritius — Maldives was struck from his original itinerary after the government there jailed an opposition leader — and addressed defense and security cooperation in each capital. In concrete terms, Modi’s visit highlighted India’s continuing interest in deploying and maintaining a network of coastal surveillance radars across the region, leading to heightened intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities and maritime domain awareness for the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. The high point for India’s planned CSR network came during Modi’s one-day visit to Sey